You can live on basic income and/or welfare, but not all that well. You'll be poor. You'll be living in a bad neighborhood or a crummy tiny apartment and won't

You can live on basic income and/or welfare, but not all that well. You'll be poor. You'll be living in a bad neighborhood or a crummy tiny apartment and won't be able to buy very much. Most ambitious people -- the people who have personality characteristics that lead them to achieve interesting things -- want more than this. As a result, most are not willing to live exclusively on the dole. The thing a basic income might accomplish is to allow people to make path changes. As it stands a person's well being is directly tied to their income and very few people make enough or can live debt-free enough to save enough "FU money" to take any length of time off without severely threatening their future (e.g. eating retirement savings). Basic income would allow people to take a step back and reevaluate whether their current path is best. Welfare is needs-based not wants-based. It doesn't do that. Personally I think a minimal basic income could go a long way toward eliminating bullshit jobs. A bullshit job is any job that if (hypothetically) eliminated while the person is still paid, nobody would be poorer in any tangible way. It's a job that does not actually need to be done and doesn't actually benefit anyone. Since our society depends on jobs to move money around, bullshit jobs must continue to exist even when those doing them know they are doing nothing of value. Basic income would allow them to make the intelligent decision to stop doing meaningless and valueless work. I think the experiment should be done. I'm not sure if it's going to work but there's only one way to find out.